Speech recognition systems are increasingly used in applications to recognize and respond to spoken information. In a typical application, a department store uses a speech recognition system in telephone sales operations to inform calling customers of new merchandise and to accept customer spoken orders. Another application may be used by a stock brokerage firm to respond to a calling customer voice request for a stock quotation by verbally quoting current information relating to the calling customer's account.
Speech recognition systems usually have a database lexicon storing patterns, such as voice templates or models, representing complete numbers, words and phrases used in various applications. In operation, received verbal information is compared with templates to identify the received verbal information as specific numbers, words or phrases. The lexicon templates are created and updated in a laboratory by technicians who collect data samples of speech from a large number of people. The speech data samples are verified manually and used to construct a template model of a number, word or phrase. The template model is subsequently added to the database lexicon of the appropriate speech recognition system.
A problem arises in that individual speech recognition systems require database lexicons of voice templates that are oftentimes used only by the system owner and the owner's customers and are unique thereto. For example, a hospital speech recognition system requires a lexicon of voice templates that are different and distinct from the voice templates recorded in a lexicon of a grocery wholesaler speech recognition system. Thus, each speech recognition system requires the collection of a large number of speech data samples and the manual verification of the speech data samples in order to construct templates required for each specific speech recognition system application. Accordingly, a need exists for an automatic speech recognizer for speech recognition systems and a method of operating the automatic speech recognizer that enables an owner of the system to enter information used in the owner's business application into a speech recognition system without requiring the collection and verification of large numbers of speech data samples.